Oysterman Tommy Leggett farms his own beds and delivers to several Peninsula restaurants

Farm-to-table movement enjoyed by local chefs

Tommy Leggett sorts oysters farmed from an oyster bed on the York River. (Kaitlin McKeown, Daily…)

October 27, 2013|By David Nicholson, dbnicholson@dailypress.com

GLOUCESTER — — On a cool, gray autumn morning, Tommy Leggett sets out in his flat-bottomed boat, bound for the oyster beds he farms in the York River and its tributaries.

Pulling close to shore, he plunges his gaff into the shallow water and pulls up a rectangular-shaped mesh bag loaded with oysters. After dumping his "catch" onto a table, Leggett counts out 100 of the larger ones and tosses them into a purple bag with his label.

Later that day, he'll drive to Yorktown or to the Williamsburg area to deliver his shellfish to one of the several restaurants he sells to. He charges $40 for each bag.

Most restaurants get their oysters from seafood wholesalers. But an increasing number are going to the source for oysters and many other products in what has come to be known as the "farm to table" movement in food consumption.

"At first I sold to people who sold to restaurants," says Leggett. Selling to restaurants directly "is more work, but I get a great deal of satisfaction talking to chefs. I like that interaction."

On the menu

An early customer was Kyle Woodruff, who worked at River's Inn Restaurant and Crab Deck in Gloucester and is now chef de cuisine at Waypoint Seafood and Grill in Williamsburg.

"I grew up going up and down the York River," says Woodruff. "I heard Tommy was growing oysters, and our paths eventually crossed.

"He is so passionate about what he does and the product he brings to you," Woodruff adds. "He knows a lot and he loves to share his knowledge."

On the day that Leggett delivers to Waypoint, usually once a week, the restaurant often schedules a $1-per-oyster menu special. Leggett sometimes will go into the restaurant and talk to the customers, Woodruff says.

The restaurant identifies them as "Tommy Leggett's York River Oysters" on the menu and serves them on the half shell, fried, or the "Waypoint way," combined with Virginia ham, crab meat, cheddar cheese and spinach, then baked and topped with hollandaise sauce.

"At this point, with the farm to table movement, if someone is serving oysters, they ought to have at least one Virginia oyster on their menu," says Woodruff. "I would never take his oysters off the menu."

Relationships forged

Richard Carr, executive chef at Berret's Seafood Restaurant and Taphouse Grill in Williamsburg, has been serving Leggett's oysters for more than five years. There are times in the summer when the oysterman makes deliveries seven days a week, he says.

"It's neat to know the growers like Leggett...we have relationships with produce farmers as well," says Carr. "Customers are curious about where the oysters come from. We can say we know him and can tell them his story."

Leggett, 58, was born in Norfolk and came to Gloucester to work on a graduate degree at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. He married a local woman and worked as a commercial fisherman for the first 18 years, going after all kinds of fish and shellfish.

"But I began to realize that the commercial fishing industry was going into a different direction," he said, so he eventually shifted to oyster farming.

Planting the crop

In 1998 he started a job as an oyster restoration and fisheries scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. He now works for the foundation full-time and harvests oysters in the early-morning hours or after work.

Leggett leases 27 acres of oyster beds from the state for $1.50 per acre per year. It's about all he can handle, he says.

"Oyster farmers are like land farmers," he says. "We buy oyster seed and plant a crop every year."

He starts by purchasing about 400,000 oyster seeds the size of grains of sand from a hatchery in the spring. They grow in his backyard in a filtration tank called an upweller nursery until they are large enough to be put in the water, usually in October, Oysters mature at different times, he says, and some will be market-size the following summer.

Each time he goes out, Leggett pulls up the mesh bags and culls out the oysters that are large enough for market. Most restaurant customers prefer oysters that are 2 1/2 to 3 inches in length.

Oysters all year

Wild oysters spawn in the summer and become soft and watery. But Leggett and other farmers use selectively bred oysters that don't reproduce and stay plump all year long.

The commonly held advice that you should only eat oysters in colder months that end in the letter "R" was started when there was no refrigeration and oysters spoiled quickly. Today you can enjoy fresh oysters all year.

Woodruff loves York River oysters because of the low salinity level in the water. "They're sweet and have just enough brininess so that people know they're getting a good Chesapeake Bay oyster," he says.

Early on Leggett began selling his oysters at the Williamsburg Farmers Market. There he met Daniele Bourderau, the former owner of Le Yaca who became his first restaurant customer around 2004. Bourderau sold the restaurant but still works there.